Trump is asked about Arizona teacher who died

In a news conference Monday, President Donald Trump was asked about Kimberly Lopez Chavez Byrd, an Arizona teacher who died after teaching a summer school class.

Trump responded by saying schools should reopen.

Byrd’s summer school class was virtual, but she and two other teachers in the Hayden-Winkelman School District shared a classroom while they taught. All three teachers contracted COVID-19. Byrd died after she was admitted to the hospital.

In Monday’s briefing, a reporter asked Trump, “What do you tell parents, who look at this, who look at Arizona where a school teacher recently died teaching summer school, parents who are worried about the safety of their children in public schools?”

The president did not address Byrd’s death. He responded, “Schools should be opened. Schools should be opened. Those kids want to go to school. You’re losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed. We saved millions of lives while we did the initial closure.”

Arizona teachers have increasingly called for in-person school reopening to be delayed as the pandemic continues to rage through the state.

Gov. Doug Ducey ordered in-person classes to be delayed until at least Aug.17, but many say that date is still too soon.

On Monday, a group of school board members delivered a petition to Ducey calling for in-person school to be delayed until at least October.

“I’ve been contacted by teachers who have said that they’re getting their wills together because they’re afraid of going back to the classroom,” Adam Lopez Falk, a school board member with the Alhambra School District in Phoenix, said at a news conference.

Some school districts have already decided not to open until at least October.

A teacher’s death, and a warning

Byrd’s death made national headlines as Trump and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos waged a campaign to reopen schools last week.

But in Arizona, where COVID-19 cases have recently hit record highs, education leaders have said reopening could pose significant risks to teachers, students and their families.

Byrd died on June 26 after battling the novel coronavirus on a ventilator.

Her death has her family feeling lost, her husband said. He remembers her as passionate about teaching, hunting, fishing and her family. Byrd was the kind of person who could always recognize when another human needed support. “She was very intuitive to people that were hurting or in need of something,” Jesse Byrd said.

She and her fellow teachers, Jena Martinez-Inzunza and Angela Skillings, thought they were taking the necessary precautions while teaching in the same classroom. With no students in the room, they kept their distance, wore face masks, did not share equipment and used disinfectant.

But all three women became sick. Martinez-Inzunza and Skillings both warn that what happened to them could happen to other teachers if Arizona opens schools too soon.

“I think of our students and I know how many times a day they touch each other, how many times a day they’re out of their seats, especially our younger kids, and I can see germs spreading quicker than anything,” Skillings said.

School board members from across metro Phoenix and physicians echoed those concerns during the press conference Monday. The board members stood in 111 degree heat at the Capitol during the news conference. They stood six feet apart, wore masks, and used hand sanitizer before taking their masks off to speak.

Board members said they needed more time and funding to prepare for school reopening. Some had harsh words for Ducey and Trump, condemning Ducey for taking a lax strategy in combating the virus and Trump for threatening to cut funding for schools that don’t reopen on time.

Dr. Dionne Mills, an Arizona obstetrician, said inaction by Ducey caused COVID-19 cases to spike and made school reopening an impossibility. “I cannot stand aside and see that the lives of our children and teachers are being unnecessarily jeopardized because of choices our leaders refuse to make,” she said.